UTF-8 encoding is a way to represent characters that sometimes uses more than one byte per character. This code takes (up to) the first N characters regardless of how many bytes each character uses. Once those characters are pulled from the words they are combined using string concatenation into a single large string which is then used as a byte array to calculate a CRC32 checksum

It is not a lie, I never said code audit, I said independent people have looked at the code and all concluded it is an obfuscated copy. For example:


BTW, you can't know "no one has done a code audit except ...", since the code is public. Someone else may have audited it and not told you about it.

Huh? There are statements by a half dozen or so people who have examined the code and concluded that it is an obfuscated copy, not "this semi-bitcoin dev". These are independent people who have looked independently, and given independent opinions, all reaching the same conclusion. The weight of that evidence is quite compelling.

I gave the list of names above, and it is probably a partial list, because I haven't tried that hard to collect every single name.


Peercoin is a Bitcoin fork and contains a Bitcoin copyright notice and MIT license. To credit peercoin he would also have to credit Bitcoin, include the copyright notices in his code, and not falsely claim to have written it entirely from scratch, when several independent people have examined the code and concluded it is an obfuscated copy. https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/blob/master/COPYING


It doesn't get any more off topic than that.

I'm just a guy posting on a Scam Accusation thread. If you think Scam Accusation threads are all about "crypto cops" and shouldn't exist, take it up with the forum admin. I personally believe that falsely taking credit for others' work -- work that was given to you to use freely with only the condition that you acknowledge it -- is one of the worst forms of scamming.

As much as I dislike what john-conner has done, I still wouldn't copy his coin and claim I created it, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like it very much if I did.


That's off topic, but the main difference is that AEON is explicitly described as a Monero fork, contains all of the upstream copyright notices, and gives credit whenever others' work is used (with permission). There is some new code in there, for example pruning, tweaks to PoW, privacy, P2P, etc. but that's exactly how it was and is presented: Monero with different branding and community, experimental changes, and potential improvements. Unlike Vcash, no one claimed or claims it to be anything other than what it is.

Don't act naive. People look for coins that are not Bitcoin forks and consider that as a potential advantage as an investment. There was an obvious reason he said it was written from scratch and that is exactly to set it apart from the crowd of other coins that were also forks of Bitcoin. In fact, when he launched it he was explicitly asked whether it was a Bitcoin fork because people care about that in choosing coins and instead of admitting it, he decided to lie and claim it was written entirely from scratch (but then that was likely his plan all along, otherwise why obfuscate by reformatting the code and removing the comments?)

If, as you claim, it no longer matters that it was actually in large part an obfuscated Bitcoin fork, then he should just admit it, and put the his past mistakes behind him, which would indeed help settle the matter. He would no longer need to be pissed of at me for accurately calling him out on his lies and his continued denials, and therefore he would also no longer feel compelled to lash out in retaliation by lying about Monero exploits as fluffypony originally accused him (correctly) of doing, writing "full of shit" posts about Monero's data storage, etc.

I did look, after you mentioned looking at his posting history. I saw him posting offering to return the funds he was holding:


I later saw various people requesting of the funds he was holding and then receiving them, with zero complaints of not receiving a full refund (I received mine).

I also saw that when asked about the MEW funds being used for Crypto-Kingdom, rpietila said exactly the opposite of what you claimed he said.


No one ever said that David was not part of the Monero team. He clearly was, but went off to do his own thing a long time ago and effectively disappeared from the group for a year or more, did not stay in contact. and did not tell us what he was doing other than "starting a business". Another one of the other original members also disappeared in a similar manner. That's how unpaid open source projects often work: people are volunteers who come and go based on other activities and demands on their time.

Risto was indeed never part of the Monero team, just a community member and supporter.

It would be yet another inaccurate deflection. Some of the already-identified copied portions have nothing to do with backward compatibility.

You're really desparate to come up with something, any available excuse, to explain it away, huh? Maybe it would be easier to just go with the simpler explanation that he's a scammer who launched an obfuscated Bitcoin fork as a falsely-hyped entirely-written-from-scratch coin and now continues to scam by making false statements about other coins. Ya, know, Occam's Razor and all.

Why is that so hard to believe? It is obvious you are unwilling or unable to dig into the code to actually answer for yourself (or look at the twitter timestamps running in reverse order). Is that laziness, inability, or are you just a paid shill with zero willingness to engage in honest inquiry on the matter?

This isn't about the morality of copying music, it is about taking credit for others' work (work that was given to you freely to use if you just acknowledge it) and holding your product out as something it is not. Many people may have 10000 download songs in their iPad, but few claim to have written and performed all those songs, and fewer still would believe them if they did.


How did that work out for Brian Williams?

It takes the first N characters of each seed word interpreted using the UTF8 encoding (N=unique prefix length), combines them into one string, computes the crc_32 of the resulting string interpreted as a byte array, and then modulo (remainder) with the word list length.

Yes the CLI wallet comes with the source code that you need to build in order to mine. The withdraw_vesting command is what you are looking for. Once you initiate the withdraw, you will get a 1/104 payment every week, and it can be canceled at any time. The amount of the payments is fixed at the time of the request.

It is also possible to use the power down button on the web site to do the same thing.

Yes that was only during the pure PoW phase.


Yes but conversions are only 1/104 per week. It is probably best to mine to increase your Steam power (formerly known as VESTS) if you intend to use the system. But you can mine, convert, and sell if you really want to.

You're posting here. By your logic you should simply ignore the thread and not waste time posting.

If your goal here is to get me to shut up about their scamming, that's not going to happen, so you are doing the same thing you are accusing me of doing



And I don't even agree with you that not a damn thing will change if you review and give your conclusion. The more qualified people review the code the more their protestations become absurd and ineffective. If they didn't feel it was effective in keeping doubt open about the accusation, they wouldn't do it.

Maybe your particular review wouldn't make an immediate difference but it is one more that adds to the weight of it, and where is the line?  What happens after 10 reviews, 20 reviews, etc.? Are they really going to continue to try to sell people on the same bullshit denials? I don't think so.

Go buy Bitcoins. There are a lot of ways to do that everywhere in the world starting with localbitcoins in most places, or coinbase in not quite as many but still quite a few. Or many other ways. Then trade them for CLAMs and you are good to go.

Monero will be fine (or it won't) regardless of what I do or don't do. I don't exaggerate my own importance one way or the other. I also happen to believe that rampant scams and scumbaggary like this is a bigger problem for the future of crypto (and for that matter open source) than what people think of one particular coin. There is more to life than calculating every action on the basis of trying to pump it, or protect it from potential controversy.

Here's a suggestion for you: Why don't you take a look at the actual code and give an opinion on whether it is copied from Bitcoin or written entirely from scratch? You're pretty qualified to do that. You can find some of the relevant examples linked from john-conner's trust history, but to quote one of the people there, "it won't be hard to find dozens more".

The more people speak out against it rather than just ignoring scams in the name of keeping things peaceful, the less scammers like john-conner will be able to pull this crap. It's not really about him, it about the next 10 like him who consider whether they ought to take similar ethical shortcuts in stealing code and launching based on dishonest claims or not.

You may be right, that as long as it is just me people will ignore it, but the more the full weight of the community comes down on it, the more we will start to see real change.

Already refuted long ago by Luke-Jr and others.

Each individual Bitcoin developer owns the copyright to his or her contributions. To operate outside the license at this point would require permission from all of the developers, including Satoshi, but even Satoshi alone can not legally violate the license, nor grant permission to others' work. It is clear that at least some of the portions or code copied from Bitcoin in Vanillacoin/Vcash are not from Satoshi.

It is hard to get anyone to accept Paypal for crypto especially when you are a Newbie with no reputation.

You are better off buying Bitcoin using one of the well-established mechanisms and exchanging it for CLAMs.

So in other words, the best defense you can come up with actually supports the accusation against him. Very nice.


That's interesting as far as answering irrelevant questions goes.

"Does Vcash/Vanillacoin contain or has it ever contained substantial portions of code that are copied from Bitcoin with only minor modification such as reformatting, removing comments, and changing of variable names (directly or indirectly via an intermediate coin forked from Bitcoin)?"

Advance fee scam much?

Nobody is interested in putting up money on the basis of entirely unsupported claims with zero evidence from a proven liar and scammer.

The one with zero remaining credibility here based on a documented pattern of repeated false claims is not us, it is john-connor.

If he wants to prove he didn't simply make up the 12 exploits like he made up everything else, he ought to be smart enough to figure out how to do that in a provable, verifiable manner. If he's not, he's not.

@pseudonymdude

No one has claimed that it is a clone of bitcoin. That question was obviously crafted carefully in order to allow for a half-truth answer, and one that does not respond to the actual relevant (and frequently asked) question:

"Does Vcash/Vanillacoin contain or has it ever contained substantial portions of code that are copied from Bitcoin with only minor modification such as reformatting, removing comments, and changing of variable names (directly or indirectly via an intermediate coin forked from Bitcoin)?"


If 10% of the code (I have no idea if the scripting engine is 10% of the code, but let's assume it for now) is Bitcoin code then he is admitting copying, misrepresenting, and violating the license. Why claim it was written "entirely" from scratch (his word) when 10% of it was copied, and why fail to include the Bitcoin license that clearly (and apparently now admittedly) applies to 10% of the code?

Furthermore some of the already-identified copied Bitcoin code is not part of the scripting engine so the quoted statement is either a lie or a mistake.

P.S. Why is it necessary for all Vcash scammers/socks to flood every thread and gang up on someone every single time? It's quite consistent and obvious. Is that too a form of forum sliding (five responses from five "different" Vcash supporters being posted for every one post criticizing it?). I mean, I can easily handle all of you and your deflections, because I have the facts on my side and that makes it easy, but it is still tedious and looks pretty desperate.

It could survive yes, but traffic and revenue would indeed plummet.

Responsible businesses, especially regulated ones, are very unlikely to run software they are aware is illegally copied. This is both a response to your question that can be interpreted in a number of different ways, as well as a general observation.

An interesting case is a business concluding that it can't legally use some wallet software while still holding customer funds. How does it return the funds? I guess fair use might apply for the purpose of returning the funds, but it also might take lawyers a while to figure that out. Would fair use apply for a business making use of its own funds? Not as clear I guess.

Thank you, updated OP accordingly.